Chapter 6 Chapter 2 The Aesthetics of the Sexes-4

intoxicating song In the earliest stage of human history, poetry has been combined with music and dance to have a new way of expression.In primitive societies it is often of an erotic nature.However, love songs are sometimes "similar to the poetic works of civilized peoples", singing the praises of tender feelings.All this expresses the direct and unreserved frankness of primitive people. In ancient India's so-called Vedic period (1500 BC to 1000 BC) literature - in the Vedas and Upanishads, men are represented as bulls and women as cows.In this way, the meaning of human sexual function is very clearly displayed.In the Upanishads, you can also see more elaborate metaphors, which directly illustrate this point.God grants the joy of conception.This joy is like the "firelight" in which God sends the seed and man is born.

The Vedas and Upanishads glorify the magic of mating in terms of personal and cosmic savors with pagan candor, arguing that this is where the deep meaning of love lies.A man beckons a woman to "share his love with him".Sexual behavior is regarded as the sacred behavior of polytheists! Men are fascinated by women, dreaming of kissing her, throwing themselves into her arms, and whispering: "You are beautiful, you are happy."  In the later abstinence In this era, lust has become more reserved, people's inner world has become rich and complex, and people's spiritual value has also deepened.However, the sensuality of love has not been lost, and sometimes it can express people's lofty ideals.

Under the slavery system, the emotional environment of personal love gradually formed, and people's feelings were still very hidden. The enslavement of individuality made people's pursuits less demanding.To suit the suitability of the expression of love, the poetry gradually became more subtle and subtle, artistically reflecting this progressive tendency.Because of the great differences in social status, the personal love of a certain man for a certain woman sometimes turns into tragedy.Elegies expressing such tragedies have a profound aesthetic impact on the human spirit, raising the self-worth of the budding emotion of love.

In the Song of Songs of the Old Testament, love appears as a magical, powerful spontaneous force.The love it describes is dynamic and concrete.The similes and modifiers used in the sweet talk of lovers are already poetic, but they are still very simple: they are still connected with sympathy, with the most basic sense of touch, but not with the higher level of spiritual creation.For example, the beloved woman is compared to "a horse in a pharaoh's chariot" (the ninth sentence of the first chapter).However, after all, there is also the germination of choosing a spouse and falling in love with a specific woman. "As the lily is among thorns, my love is among women." (Chapter 2, second sentence)

"Song of Songs" describes to us the buds of true love and inner torment in the form of poetry.Personal favorites, choosing a spouse from among many people, exaggerating and idealizing the beloved, and the richness of the emotional and psychological feelings of both lovers began to stand out.But this is not yet developed and fully expressed love between a man and a woman.In "Song of Songs", people's primitive instincts and lusts are still dominant. It is still mainly lust that prevails in the undeveloped pursuit of love.However, after all, it still expresses the emotional tendency of the noble pursuit that people had at that time.In the works of the sixth-century Arabic poet Antara, we can see such a description of the beloved woman: "I saw a fair woman, her hair fell to the ground ... black as night ... in the black Against the backdrop of her hair, she looks like a sunburst, and her long hair is like a deep night... The sharp arrow-like eyes of the stunning girl captured my heart. These arrows brought wounds that could not be healed. She walked past... The breasts are as plump as a gazelle. She smiled, and her pearly white teeth gleamed between her lips, and the medicine hidden there could heal the pain of her lover... She prostrated herself before the great Allah, touching her forehead to the ground, and Allah the Great bowed his head before her beauty."

The "Book of Kings" written by the Persian poet Ferdowsi (tenth century) reflects the development of the relationship between men and women at a relatively high stage.The first is personal preference and choice.Attention is focused on a certain woman in visual and associative associations.The sensual desire for women is illuminated by the light of aesthetic sensibility.Ferdowsi extols the beauty of women in this way:  She is like an ivory statue, Like the bright morning sun, tall and straight poplars, The two ropes slide down slowly from the snow-white shoulders, A shining ring formed under her feet.

Pomegranate cheeks, red lips— Like the seeds of a pomegranate, the udder is the fruit of the pomegranate. Tomorrow and yesterday are like two narcissus, glowing with the breath of spring; lashes black as a raven's wings, Brows curved like the bow of Taras,  Such as dark Shengxiang sowing love. Beauty's breath is fresh and fragrant; The moon was eclipsed before her; Happy glance, like a flower garden,  brings comfort, joy and happiness.  The theme of love can also be seen in the art of ancient Greece.In fact, ancient Greek poetry is not rich in expressing the psychological content of love.Even when there are works of this content, the intense lust is always far greater than the conscious pursuit of love.The dazzling Aphrodite itself only ignites the flames of people's passions, but does not raise it to the height it deserves.  As Balabanov pointed out: "In the lyric poetry of the early Greek classicism era, love is not the basic theme", just as the ancient Greek drama "has no time to take care of" love.It was only at the end of this splendid civilized age that touching love themes gradually appeared.Love can be described even in the most poignant of circumstances.Neglecting this aspect of the subject matter should be of paramount importance.The insufficiency of the theme of love reflected in ancient Greek poetry may be due to the lack of psychological development of the Greeks.  Balabanov wrote: "No matter in or in "Odyssey", there is no description of love, not only does it not describe the love understood by modern people, but it does not even describe the love understood in the classical period." Take Helen, and Helen doesn't love Paris.The beautiful Helen also has no love for her husband Menelaus.They argued and fought endlessly for her, but none of them loved her.According to Balabanov, "The Book of Ilion" has only one love theme-that is, "to take the beautiful Briseis away from Achilles". The text of "Ilion" does not provide conclusive archaeological basis for this conclusion.The slavery of a captive woman is a severe obstacle to love.Achilles also regarded Briseis as a spoil.His tantrums are really about insulting his royal reputation by taking her away from him, not because he can't live without her.Kelt concluded: "If Agamemnon had not taken Briseis from Achilles, but some other valuable weapon or steed, the theme and content of Homer's epic poems may not have changed. Change."

The story that Calypso, the goddess of the forest, left Odysseus on the island of Egugia is widely circulated, and it is generally considered to be a love theme.In a cave on a deserted island in the Aegean Sea, lives the eternally young and beautiful mountain goddess Calypso.She is alone, lonely, and catches the stray Odysseus almost like fishing.She fell in love with Odysseus (at least that's what the epic says), and she fell in love with him passionately and persistently for seven years.But can we say this is love? With what emotion does the young nymph fall in love with him? There is not enough personal choice here in the first place, since Calypso only meets one man.The treacherous and cunning Odysseus was not moved at all, but the city was very deep.He just went along with the situation and waited for the opportunity to escape and return to Greece.The section describing Nausicaa's affection for Odysseus also has no ending.

Themes of love also appear in the poems of the ancient Greek singers Arkay and Sappho, who had great audiences. Sappho's feelings are like a "storm". Driven by madness, she loses her mind and becomes obsessed; such enthusiasm and pain cannot be restrained, and the selflessness and infinity of fantasy strongly attract people.Eros, the god of love, came to torment me again, bitter and sweet, like a poisonous snake that cannot escape, as long as I see you, I can no longer speak a word.But Sappho "did not describe the object of his love".Her feelings are more full of the taste of origin, which can be said to be poured into the whole nature and all the beautiful things in the world.Alkay's lyric poetry is also dominated by pure eroticism.His feelings are naturalistic, but not definite enough.

Anacreon, too, sings the praises of inner stirrings.But his love is not in the true sense.He admits, "He loves and he doesn't love, he is crazy and he is not crazy." For this reason Balabanov writes: "It is not that Anacreon has not fallen in love with a certain person, his emotions, his love. It's easy to switch from one girl to another and back to the first." Sophocles, one of the three major tragic poets of ancient Greece, created the real tragedy, the tragedy of love.The protagonists of his play, Antigone and Haemon, love each other.Although the author says little about love in the play, we only infer it as the tragedy unfolds, or say that it has a self-evident quality.Antigone was sentenced to death for burying the body of her brother Polynek against the will of King Creon.Haimeng, unable to save her, also commits suicide.

Antigone kept her feelings deep in her heart.Her heart, the heart of a woman in pain, was closed.Only once did she say: "Dear Haemon, my poor man." Haemon embraced his beloved "with his feeble arms."He finally "performed his wedding in the house of death".The choir laments that Eros, the god of love, and his conquerors "are suffering and are heartbroken." In the play "Antigone", the content of love is extensive and has no completely definite form.The first love is the brother-sister affection for his own brother Pelunek.It should be said that the love for the fiancé is not love in the true sense, and has no special features.Love is erratic in this work, making it difficult to grasp, mainly because love had no definite connotation at that time.But its warm breath can be felt. Finally, another tragic poet of ancient Greece, Euripides.The love scenes created by Euripides are breathtaking. In the tragedy "Iphigenia at Aulis," Agamemnon's daughter Iphigenia must be sacrificed to the gods for her fatherland.And Achilles fell in love with the girl, and he wanted to save her.Therefore, he claimed that he was going to marry her and take her "into his home".However, the decision to save the motherland cannot be changed.Otherwise, the motherland will be at stake, and Iphigenia must sacrifice her life for the motherland.The characteristic of love in ancient Greece is that no one gets to bring true happiness.Usually the ending is tragic.The cruel reality of slave society is a huge obstacle to the development of love, which cannot be fully developed and successfully brought to fruition.Therefore, Iphigenia and Achilles are doomed not to be true lovers.The ancient Greeks had the "sprout" in the early stage of love, but they did not taste the sweet fruit of love. In Euripides' tragedy "Hippolytus", the author created the image of Phaedra, who was the first woman in ancient Greek literature to express her love passionately. She said in her suicide note: Aphrodite grants you the right to love. You have to be brave - give yourself to love.  The long poem "Argonauts" written by the ancient Greek poet Apollonius of Rhodes is an ode to love.It tells the story of Jason's search for the Golden Fleece and the love of Medea, the daughter of King Aeetes for him.The love in this long poem has an unprecedented poetic flavor.The unfailing love, the infinite affection for him, the unimaginably long waiting and rich fantasies - all these reflect the degree of emotional stability of Medea. The sexual descriptions in ancient Greek and Roman literature with pornographic components are full of breath of life.While idealizing physical pleasure, the increasingly bright emotional factors have been reflected from an aesthetic point of view.